Every question they asked about his goats was a question they weren't asking about Ariana. Or about Gellert Grindelwald and Albus. Or about the secret passageway under the bar. Or about what happened to the money in the till, when the night was over.

Of the steady accumulation of books in my apartment, I imagine nearly half were acquired at library book sales. This includes calorific comfort reads like the complete works of Flannery O’Connor, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, and Isaac Babel (these seasonal sales are lousy with collected volumes). While I purchase some books new, the rest are reaped—due to ongoing financial constraints—from cardboard boxes in library common rooms. (For the sake of self-aggrandizement, let’s call these books "rescues.")

When Arabella moved to the house on Wisteria Walk she began referring to herself as Mrs. Figg; of course she never said anything to Dumbledore about it, since she never had to re-introduce herself to him the way she had to establish her history among the neighbors—just say Mrs., look a bit sad sometimes, they'll come to their own conclusions—but the owls started arriving late at night addressed to Mrs. Arabella Figg all the same.